1.28 Cooking - Papalo Iced Tea

Bestest Friend and I are embarking on a new blog project. Each day of the month we will post a picture on a pre-determined theme and write a little something about it. The theme for the twenty-eighth day of each month is "Cooking."
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The farmers who run our CSA are a tiny bit obsessed with an herb called papalo. Last year, we pretty much put failed to use it for anything because, you know, it's kind of a weird herb, at least for the regions of the world in which we hail from.  Anyway, this year I am bound and determined to use everything we get in our basket (ha ha! - the first fail was the first week when we failed to use even a fraction of the fresh oregano given to us - apparently herbs are our Achilles' heel), so I decided to use it for an iced tea recipe..

Approximately 64 ounces of water
Approximately 3 tablespoons of green tea (I used loose leaf)
1/8 cup honey (more if you want sweeter tea)
Handful of papalo leaves
Fruit (I used strawberries and blueberries here and also made it with cherries at one point)

Heat the water to 140 - 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Slowly pour over tea leaves. Steep for ten minutes. Remove tea leaves and stir in honey until it is fully dissolved.  Cool in the refrigerator.  Once cool, add papalo leaves.  Allow leaves to steep for at least 1 hour.  Cut up fruit, add to the bottom of a glass, pour in tea, and enjoy.

It is absolutely delicious.

Outtake: I am clearly not a food blogger because I have 10 pictures of my kitty perfectly in focus
and the tea all crazy blurry and only one with the tea in focus.  My priorities are clear.

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To see what Bestest Friend wrote about the theme of the day, check out her blog, Too Legit To Quit.